The Hornet
for Tyler Flynn Dorholt
Nervous pennant
bodega shade
hornets don’t bite
too alive still
notched by today’s caustic
sun’s slop-glutted face
and tearing pieces of crown
to forge taste and jewel
night into an endless prolepsis
I think I want too alive
like a surge of hornets
cloud to form nuptial flight
it’s a scientific term
we are budding ethologists
insert flower pun
I lust after
my animal
or curve
from one pheromone
to entire syntax
garish pockets of light
in someone else’s pollen
so in frenzy we know
just how ancient we’ve grown
seething with light for our friends
who did never stop for law
I read all the directions
backwards to stave off logic
and claw each sunny
curl as it breaks
against the beachhead
of my face
to breathe
new pollen
on the telephone
everyone loves cancer
we should talk hornet
if by talking hornet
you mean dance it off
The Boat
for Thom Donovan
In reversing
what violence
made us objects
does each part
pertain to a bloom?
I’m only asking you
because I’m not the apocalypse
or at least not completely
the glue of our decisions worn
through effort of other’s self-regard
I eat the mirror’s flame
and choke out little freedoms
that fall into disrepair
I hold the panorama
at its middle
in a pinch
of seeing
so eye
can’t slide off
I’m talking ecstatic
forms of sudden disavowal
that allow blood surrender
where bark of blood asunder
I think I’d rather mother
where a broken boat is best
there is rhythm to the utter
tongue we please as eel
and sail like every sail
only fills with sun
this is day’s tyranny
holding our own
skin in colors
we can’t
drift ourselves
as far as
belonging I said
belonging takes a ship